


too fast, too slow

by orphan_account



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Angst, Eating Disorders, Growing Up, M/M, Mental Health Issues, NCT 127/U makes guest appearences, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Recreational Drug Use, Slow Burn, Underage Drinking, i'm emotional about the dreamies ok
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 12:50:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17467889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “You don’t look happy”, Jaemin said, still smiling but in kind of sad way. Good job, Donghyuck. Always managing to make everyone else feel shitty too.With a sigh he managed to heave his heavy body up from the couch they’d been sitting on. “But do I look good?”, he said with a hopefully convincing grin. “Now that’s the important question. Come on, Jaemin-ah. Let’s go dance.”- Jaemin is back from his semester abroad, Jeno has no idea what he's doing, Renjun is just trying to fix it all, Jisung & Chenle are still a bit clueless & Donghyuck is slowly falling apart.And Mark, Mark is leaving soon.





	too fast, too slow

**Author's Note:**

> hello everyone it is almost 5 am lol hahahhahaa  
> \- tw: eating disorder mention! please be careful, everyone :)  
> \- hopefully i will actually keep up with this pic :)  
> \- everything in this pic is very much fictional and definitely not a reflection of reality - lol its more just me attempting to work through my issues through writing :)))))  
> \- not proof read (yet?)  
> \- ok so try to enjoy anyways :))) feedback is of course appreciated :)

It was winter, and Donghyuck was feeling himself slipping again. Of course, he kept telling himself he didn’t want to get bad again, even though it was so easy. It felt almost comforting somehow.  
He’d never liked the winter, the lack of sun warming his skin, late mornings & early nights. Maybe it was just a seasonal thing. Maybe he could keep telling himself that.   
Winter holidays were over, which meant it was time to get back to school. Thank god. While at first he’d naturally enjoyed the lack of school work like any normal teen, by now he couldn’t wait to get out of his house & actually breathe again.   
His parents making the decision to “send him off” to boarding school two years ago was the best thing that ever happened to him. He was caught skipping class and getting high at his old high school and the ever worrying parents they were, they made the very difficult decision to enroll him in a very prestigious (and also incredibly expensive, as they kept reminding him) all-boys boarding school. Honestly, they were just happy to have him off his back and focus on his much cuter, younger brothers. He couldn’t blame them. He knew he was an awful lot of trouble. Sometimes he wondered why his friends even kept him around, but he’d known them for almost two years now and somehow they hadn’t gotten too tired of him. Yet.   
Most of his closest friends were juniors, like him: Renjun, who sometimes felt like the glue keeping them all together, Jaemin, who’d finally by returning after spending a semester abroad in Australia & Jeno, whose smile and hugs could make Donghyuck feel better even if he was having a particularly hard day. Chenle was one year younger than him and had only joined them last year, which meant he was still struggling with his Korean more often than not (which was very adorable, something his hyungs loved to remind him of). Then there was Jisung, the group’s baby and Donghyuck was scared how much the little brat had grown once again over the holidays.   
The oldest one among them was Mark. Mark was well, Mark: awkward, goody-two shoes, bad jokes making Mark, whose laugh made Donghyuck’s stomach feel all weird. That meant nothing of course. Even when they stayed up together all night all those times during the years, simply listening to music, annoying each other, but enjoying it a lot more than they would ever like to admit. It didn’t matter. And even if those things did matter, Mark was leaving them. He was a senior and after his exams in the summer he would probably go back to Canada for university. 

They had arrived. He shook his head to get rid of his stupid overthinking, kissed his mother goodbye and got out of the car. Home sweet home, it was. Two and a half years ago, when his parents had dropped him off here, he’d looked at the old stone building surrounded by what seemed like nothing but nature and thought this would be the end of his life. Now nothing felt more like home.   
It looked as though he was one of the first boys back on campus after the break. Perfect. Some calm and peace was exactly what he needed just about now. It also gave him more than enough time to hide his stash of weed & alcohol that he’d smuggled from home. The others would celebrate him as their hero. Well, maybe not Mark. His eyes would go all wide and he’d scold him, even though he’d never be really mad. Prefect or not, it was not like Mark had never smoked with them before.   
He heaved his luggage up the stairs and easily navigated himself to the room he’d occupied for past two years: the room he shared with Mark. Two doors down the hall was Jeno’s room that he used to share with Jaemin, before he left for his semester abroad. Now Renjun was sharing with him. Donghyuck wondered how things would be between those three now that Jaemin was back.   
Nobody quite knew what exactly happened between Jeno and Jaemin the night they all got wasted, the last time everyone was together before he left for Australia. Donghyuck himself had been drunk of his ass and all he could remember was Mark freestyling, his brown eyes glinting with the reflection of the bonfire. Whatever happened, Jaemin and Jeno hadn’t talked all the time he was gone. No calls, no texts, no letters. It was disturbing, but Jeno wouldn’t say a word about it. Something was off though, everybody saw it.   
Well, maybe he shouldn’t be talking. They all had their secrets after all, hadn’t they? Last summer when he came back from his family vacation, four shades darker and 10 kilos lighter, nobody bothered him. Not his friends. They looked at him with worry and pushed him too eat, but they let him be when he assured them he was fine. It wasn’t a lie, not really. After all, for a while it did really get better. Now though, looking at the mirror in Mark’s and his shared room, he was getting the unnerving urge to force the last homemade meal his mother cooked him right back up. Before he could actually have an inner debate over whether he should really break his 1-month-of-being-somewhat-fine streak, the door opened abruptly and Mark stood out there in the hallway. Donghyuck’s foolish heart skipped a beat.   
“Back already, hyung?”, he asked, trying to come off somewhat unbothered. “Yeah, stupid”, the other boy responded, pushing his suitcase into the room: “I missed you, you know.”  
“Of course you did, idiot”, Donghyuck responded and couldn’t help himself but grinning like an actual idiot. Suddenly, Mark hugged him. It was a bit awkward, but he still tried to cherish the moment for a few seconds before pushing the older off of him. “Ew, gross, stop it. Canada made you all emotional again.” Mark laughed and threw himself on his bed. “Are any of the others back yet? Jaemin probably can’t wait to get back after being gone for so long, unless he found better friends in Australia.”  
Donghyuck shrugged. “Don’t know, my mom dropped me off like 10 minutes ago. Just go check.” Mark frowned a little bit at that (or Donghyuck was just imagining that part). Then he pulled out his phone and started spamming their trusty old group chat, established by Jeno, Jaemin, Mark and himself what felt like forever ago.   
As it turned out, everyone except for Chenle and Jisung was back already. Typical. Gone where his dreams of peace and quiet, but he couldn’t really complain. He missed the idiots that were his friends.   
“Jeno said that his brother, you know Doyoung, right? His fraternity is throwing a party tonight and we’re invited if we want to go”.  
“Thanks, hyung, I can actually read, you know?”   
“Well, what do you say?”  
“What? Who are you and what have you done with Mark Lee? No lectures about the dangers of partying and drinking?” At that, Mark chuckled. “I don’t know, school doesn’t start back up until Monday and I mean, this is my last semester after all… why not enjoy it?”  
Donghyuck was pretty sure he actually openly gaped at the older at that. Very unlike Mark, but he wasn’t one to complain about this new-found openness to forbidden activities.   
“Well then, of course we’re going. Tell everyone to have a good dinner, I’m bringing the drinks. You know my motto right: The less you remember, the better the night.”  
Mark groans at that. “Ah, what have I gotten myself into now.”  
“Come on, you know you want it, hyung. Don’t pretend you don’t”, he said with a giggle, earning him another exaggerated groan from Mark.

A couple hours later he was sipping on his fifth drink of the night, already pleasantly buzzed. Mark was immersed in a conversation with his favorite friend of Doyoung’s, Taeyong. Donghyuck looked away. What Mark did was none of his business after all, so he scanned the room for a familiar face. Renjun was engaged in a conversation in Chinese with some of the Chinese frat guys. Finally, he spotted Jaemin on one of the couches in the corner, looking anywhere but at Jeno aggressively making out with some tall college guy on the dance floor. Bingo.   
A bit wobbly he made his way across the room to his friend. “Jaemin-ah”, he greeted the other, careful not to slur his words too much. “Hope Australia treated you well”.  
Jaemin beamed up at him. God, it was good to have him back, like a missing puzzle piece. Right now, drunk Donghyuck thought, things might actually turn out all right. Everyone could be happy again, right?  
“It was great”, Jaemin said, patting the empty spot next to him. He sounded not so convincing. “I just missed you guys an awful lot”. Donghyuck couldn’t help but laugh. “Sure you did. Some more than others I guess, am I right?”  
Jaemin looked down at his half-empty cup. Leave it to Donghyuck to make things awkward. Not everyone is stupidly in love with their best friend, idiot, a voice in his head piped up. Donghyuck shut it down.   
“How have you been, Hyuckie?”, Jaemin said. What an angel, Donghyuck thought. Why couldn’t he just have fallen for sweet, patient, lovely Jaemin? Jaemin, who was also gay and had been out for as long as they’d know each other. Donghyuck himself was still trying to keep that part of him pushed deep, deep down. Not everyone could be as brave as Jaemin and have such an accepting, supportive family on top. Look at Jeno, Donghyuck’s mind supplied. Right now, he and the tall guy were grinding like there was no tomorrow, but Jeno was without doubt completely wasted. Tomorrow, he would act as if nothing had ever happened. They didn’t try to confront him about it, even though they all wanted to, because last time they did he completely closed himself off for days.  
For Donghyuck it felt different though. He was… He was fat and ugly and nobody would ever want him anyways, so why even bother. Gay or not, as long as he hated what he saw in the mirror, what was the fucking point. Drunk Donghyuck just had a brilliant idea: starting tomorrow he would get himself back on track again. After all, when had eating less not been the solution to the ugly feelings always threating to overwhelm him? This was it, the magic fix for all of his problems. “Yeah, I’m great. Never been better”, he answered, making sure to drive the point home with an over-the-top smile. Fake it ‘til you make it, right? He didn’t want his friends worrying about him again, just wanted to lose, lose, lose all the weight that was pulling him down. No need more of a burden on them than he already was.   
“You don’t look happy”, Jaemin said, still smiling but in kind of sad way. Good job, Donghyuck. Always managing to make everyone else feel shitty too.   
With a sigh he managed to heave his heavy body up from the couch they’d been sitting on. “But do I look good?”, he said with a hopefully convincing grin. “Now that’s the important question. Come on, Jaemin-ah. Let’s go dance.”


End file.
